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Plus One
Junior year is hard for everyone, but especially for Lexi—and in about nine months, it's going to get a lot harder. She doesn't know what to do, how to do it, or who the father is.
Lost and afraid, she calls the only person she can think of for her ex-girlfriend Emily, who recently dumped her. But if Emily isn't willing to help, then Lexi is afraid she'll be facing this all alone...
Lost and afraid, she calls the only person she can think of for her ex-girlfriend Emily, who recently dumped her. But if Emily isn't willing to help, then Lexi is afraid she'll be facing this all alone...
128 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 14, 2018
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5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 21, 2018
This was a nice read, especially considering the author wrote this book when she was 15. Well done!
March 21, 2019
A nice solid outing by this author. This is a sweet romance, and reads smoothly. The writing quality is "typical" YA style, a light tone and a light hand with some pretty heavy issues, no sex. The storyline really establishes an appreciation for Planned Parenthood and people who support self-affirmation in both life and pregnancy choices. The story would be a great early teen read, about the grade level I used to teach (8th). Some of the dialogue exchanges are a little clunky, but the characters are sweet and the requisite push-back antagonists are quite judgmental and pushy.
The bi quality and quantity are factors of both female MCs lives, and issues of acceptance/non-acceptance are throughout. There was a good touch on the irony of acceptance when characters did sort of double-takes about the girl's pregnancy and having a girlfriend. Some characters are a little one-dimensional in their opposition to the pregnancy or the lifestyle, or both.
It is a romance. Two people (re)finding and choosing each other and figuring out a future together romantically while dealing with things that would separate a lot of other people (teen pregnancy).
The bi quality and quantity are factors of both female MCs lives, and issues of acceptance/non-acceptance are throughout. There was a good touch on the irony of acceptance when characters did sort of double-takes about the girl's pregnancy and having a girlfriend. Some characters are a little one-dimensional in their opposition to the pregnancy or the lifestyle, or both.
It is a romance. Two people (re)finding and choosing each other and figuring out a future together romantically while dealing with things that would separate a lot of other people (teen pregnancy).
January 2, 2019
This book was provided for free by the publisher and Love Bytes in exchange for an honest review.
This review was first posted to Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book Reviews. It has been slightly edited here for content.
Truth is truth—Sarah L. Young finished this book as a part of National Novel Writing month when she was only fifteen years old. That, no matter what, is absolutely amazing, and should be an inspiration for all. This book didn’t click with me at all, but Young certainly started her writing career with a bang.
After a one-night stand while brokenhearted from her breakup with Emily, main character Lexi finds herself pregnant, and she knows she wants to keep her baby. But her family has a different reaction, and with the help of a reluctant Emily, Lexi must find a way to support herself and her baby, who she already loves. There are obviously plenty of options for tension. LGBT stories involving teen pregnancy are practically non-existent, but bisexual teen girls do exist, and they may find themselves trapped between two worlds—that of a young mother, and that of a woman still coming into her sexuality. It’s a new perspective, and a valuable one, especially since Lexi is a woman of color.
But the characters themselves are painted with broad strokes, and to be honest, they aren’t very likable. Lexi is extremely immature, but her immaturity comes off as grating rather than an opportunity for growth. And though I liked Emily a little more, she has a consistently irritating holier-than-thou attitude, calling Lexi “kid” even though they are only a year apart. All of the adults are bland, too. They range from guidance counselors with textbook supportive lines to angry mothers who banish their promiscuous children from their homes. There’s just no depth. Whenever we expect the characters to grow, they just dig deeper into their convictions. Their minds were made from page one.
Though a teen pregnancy is certainly dramatic, there’s nothing about Lexi’s situation that sets her apart from any of the thousands of teenagers going through the same thing every day. Besides immediately choosing to keep her baby, Lexi is a passive character—she is shuffled by others from house to house, meeting to meeting, appointment to appointment. Her choices only come in the form of accepting offered help. She’s not an interesting protagonist, nor a clever, smart, or brave one. She makes one choice and waits for the world to revolve around her—and it does. Neatly. And worst of all, her support system seems complacent at best, like they’re all sighing and shaking their heads as they reluctantly help a poor girl who they feel sorry for. It’s almost depressing.
There’s just nothing relatable about this book. I don’t agree with the overt religious and political tones of the book at all, but personal perspectives aside, it’s a poor choice to take a staunchly pro-life stance in a piece of LGBT young adult fiction. The kids seeking these kinds of books are usually on the opposite side of the spectrum—they crave choice, diversity, freedom. And this book promotes the blandest, thinnest type of pro-life platform possible: all you need is love, and everything else will fall into place.
This is only the beginning of a bright young writer’s career, and I wanted to be honest with a review. All professional writers deserve that, and Young is now a published professional, though I think she should’ve waited on this one. It’s not a book that worked for me on any level, and I’m not sure who the audience could possibly be that would connect with this story.
This review was first posted to Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book Reviews. It has been slightly edited here for content.
Truth is truth—Sarah L. Young finished this book as a part of National Novel Writing month when she was only fifteen years old. That, no matter what, is absolutely amazing, and should be an inspiration for all. This book didn’t click with me at all, but Young certainly started her writing career with a bang.
After a one-night stand while brokenhearted from her breakup with Emily, main character Lexi finds herself pregnant, and she knows she wants to keep her baby. But her family has a different reaction, and with the help of a reluctant Emily, Lexi must find a way to support herself and her baby, who she already loves. There are obviously plenty of options for tension. LGBT stories involving teen pregnancy are practically non-existent, but bisexual teen girls do exist, and they may find themselves trapped between two worlds—that of a young mother, and that of a woman still coming into her sexuality. It’s a new perspective, and a valuable one, especially since Lexi is a woman of color.
But the characters themselves are painted with broad strokes, and to be honest, they aren’t very likable. Lexi is extremely immature, but her immaturity comes off as grating rather than an opportunity for growth. And though I liked Emily a little more, she has a consistently irritating holier-than-thou attitude, calling Lexi “kid” even though they are only a year apart. All of the adults are bland, too. They range from guidance counselors with textbook supportive lines to angry mothers who banish their promiscuous children from their homes. There’s just no depth. Whenever we expect the characters to grow, they just dig deeper into their convictions. Their minds were made from page one.
Though a teen pregnancy is certainly dramatic, there’s nothing about Lexi’s situation that sets her apart from any of the thousands of teenagers going through the same thing every day. Besides immediately choosing to keep her baby, Lexi is a passive character—she is shuffled by others from house to house, meeting to meeting, appointment to appointment. Her choices only come in the form of accepting offered help. She’s not an interesting protagonist, nor a clever, smart, or brave one. She makes one choice and waits for the world to revolve around her—and it does. Neatly. And worst of all, her support system seems complacent at best, like they’re all sighing and shaking their heads as they reluctantly help a poor girl who they feel sorry for. It’s almost depressing.
There’s just nothing relatable about this book. I don’t agree with the overt religious and political tones of the book at all, but personal perspectives aside, it’s a poor choice to take a staunchly pro-life stance in a piece of LGBT young adult fiction. The kids seeking these kinds of books are usually on the opposite side of the spectrum—they crave choice, diversity, freedom. And this book promotes the blandest, thinnest type of pro-life platform possible: all you need is love, and everything else will fall into place.
This is only the beginning of a bright young writer’s career, and I wanted to be honest with a review. All professional writers deserve that, and Young is now a published professional, though I think she should’ve waited on this one. It’s not a book that worked for me on any level, and I’m not sure who the audience could possibly be that would connect with this story.
July 10, 2019
2.75 stars. This is a sweet romance, as in fade-to-black sex scenes. The leading lady finds herself unexpectedly pregnant which leads her to seek comfort from an ex. I'm no stranger to YA, so in comparison this story felt a little thin and the characters a little one-dimensional. Many came off as caricatures, and while the plot moves forward, the people don't. Also, the pro-life attitude began to grate on me at some point. I felt like I was being force-fed politics. Sure, a book about a pregnant lesbian teen is something of a rarity but the story's too boring to feel gritty or realistic. Everything just falls into place so easily and effortlessly; power of love is great but... come on. Sorry.
November 16, 2018
The characters are so vivid! I felt really connected to them and invested in their story. The story itself is also really powerful. It shines a much-needed light on what it means to be pro-choice.
November 15, 2018
Plus One is the type of book that demands your attention and makes you want to read it again and again. In YA Literature, especially that with LGBT+ themes, it's very hard to find books with characters you can truly relate to. Young has found a way to make all of the characters, but specifically Emily and Lexi, people that I can empathize with, despite having little to nothing in common with either of them. I'd recommend this book for LGBT+ and non-LGBT+ people alike because although it does have an LGBT+ theme, it doesn't consume the whole book (which I find happen all too often in this genre). All in all, Plus One is a story of love, fear, trust, and growth and will hook any reader from just the first few words.
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March 9, 2019This one was sold to me as ‘bi teen girl gets pregnant when she and her girlfriend split up, but only has her ex-girlfriend to turn to when she gets thrown out of her home’. Which immediately appealed to me in a nostalgic, school library, kind of a way. (If only Section 28 hadn’t been in force at the time. There were plenty of books about teen pregnancy in the school library, but none of them involved anybody being anything other than straight.)
And that was a pretty good summary. The problem was, there wasn’t much more to the book than that. Lexi is pregnant. Emily tells her that it’s going to ruin her life. Lexi’s mother throws her out. Emily takes her in. A deus ex machina in the form of the principled Christian father of a friend solves the money problem. There was very little in terms of character development, and such as there was felt forced. (For example, I really wasn’t convinced by the eventual resolution of the relationship storyline, and wasn’t reassured that any of the problems that had led to the initial break-up had been solved.) When I reached the end of the e-book and discovered that this had been written as a NaNoWriMo effort when the author was fifteen, my rather uncharitable thought was that this explained a lot.
There was a lot of infodumping about abortion options, and, later, what Lexi could expect in terms of physical symptoms of pregnancy. This was all very laudable, particularly given the patchy provision of sex education in the USA, but rather reminded me of the way that The Archers began as a way to distribute news of agricultural developments to farmers. And the prose was very clumsy. Too much showing, not telling, action, and too much telling, not showing, about emotions and relationships. Although this may just be a YA thing: this is the second one in a row where I’ve really not been convinced by any of the characters and have found the prose dull. I can’t help feeling that our young adults deserve better…
And that was a pretty good summary. The problem was, there wasn’t much more to the book than that. Lexi is pregnant. Emily tells her that it’s going to ruin her life. Lexi’s mother throws her out. Emily takes her in. A deus ex machina in the form of the principled Christian father of a friend solves the money problem. There was very little in terms of character development, and such as there was felt forced. (For example, I really wasn’t convinced by the eventual resolution of the relationship storyline, and wasn’t reassured that any of the problems that had led to the initial break-up had been solved.) When I reached the end of the e-book and discovered that this had been written as a NaNoWriMo effort when the author was fifteen, my rather uncharitable thought was that this explained a lot.
There was a lot of infodumping about abortion options, and, later, what Lexi could expect in terms of physical symptoms of pregnancy. This was all very laudable, particularly given the patchy provision of sex education in the USA, but rather reminded me of the way that The Archers began as a way to distribute news of agricultural developments to farmers. And the prose was very clumsy. Too much showing, not telling, action, and too much telling, not showing, about emotions and relationships. Although this may just be a YA thing: this is the second one in a row where I’ve really not been convinced by any of the characters and have found the prose dull. I can’t help feeling that our young adults deserve better…
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews